We're all going on a(nother) summer holiday...

I spoke to my mum last night, as she is off to Spain today with my sister and my dad. Me and Mr L. are flying out to meet them tomorrow. We're staying in a friend's villa, and my burning question was "will there be towels?". Thankfully the answer was yes, 'cus as at that point I only had room in my bag for one tissue, and that's not going to get two people dry every day for a week, is it?

My mum said "Have you packed?" and yes, I had packed. Very lightly and sensibley, in just my day pack. Half of which is taken up with wedding photos. So I told my mum that I had hardly packed anything and she said "Ooh me too. I'm just taking two pairs of shoes. Wait, no two pairs of shoes and some flip-flops. And the shoes I'm travelling in."

Right mum, that's travelling light. Four pairs of shoes for seven days.

You stole the sun from my heart

Conversations two grown up married woman should probably be too sensible for #1

Me: JDB is playing the barfly next week. The Barfly! when I told Mr L he said "but it's really tiny" and I said "Yes. I know. That's the whole point." It's sold out but I'm going to try and win tickets. God, can you imagine? Think of the stalking potential. Although I'd also have to make a banner saying "I WAITED for you James Dean Bradfield. WAITED. For years! And now I'm married and you'll just have to deal with it."

Mrs D: I bet he won't be able to deal with it. He'll be all "boo hoo I've lost Abby"

Me: And I'll be all "yeah, and you tell Dave Grohl next time you see him, too"

Mrs D: And he'll be all "We had a vigil when you got married - we cried and cried and Grohl wore a bridesmaids dress"

Me: Do you know what, I bet they totally did that. And I bet the bridesmaids dress was borrowed from Nicky Wire.

Glasses? Check! Strudel? Check!

This list was found on a post-it in the library today:

Travel cream
Adaptor
Strudel
Creme Caramel
Take Glasses

What was this list for? I like to think it's a packing list and that there is someone who uses our library who ranks packing a Strudel and a Creme Caramel as more imortant than packing their glasses for a holiday in the sun.

Sleeping Beauty

There is an elderly lady who has lunch at the same time as me, and sits in the funny bit of a corridor/staff room type 'area' where I also luncheon. Everyday this lady sits down, opens her newspaper, eats half a sandwich and then falls asleep. Her head drops down and she looks for all the world as though she is deeply engrossed in her newspaper. She is so sound asleep that no-one can wake her. You'll get the occasional newcomer to the 'area' who tries to ask if they can take a seat at her table, or pinch a chair to move to another table, and they will ask politely, then ask a bit louder, then shout, some of them wave, then they just take the chair. Nothing will wake this woman, fire alarms, kids holiday clubs in the room next door, loud laughter, nothing.

Or so I thought. But yesterday I managed the impossible. Being slovenly in my wifely duties, I hadn't bothered to make lunch and so had been to the canteen to buy some sandwiches. Being slovenly in my dieting duties I had purchsed a Double Cheddar sandwich, mmmmm, calories. I went to the 'area' and there were no seats at an empty table, so I went and sat by the window, opposite Sleeping Lady. There she was, sound asleep, until I opened my sandwiches, "zwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwippppppppp" went the plastic cover, and she sat bolt upright and looked around in a very funny "I wasn't asleep at all" kinda way, settled back down and went back to sleep. And I giggled to myself all the way through my Double Cheddar sandwich.

Lost! Series 2! hooray!

So I know the world and his wife will be blogging about Lost series 2 on British tv at last, so I'll be brief.

1. Why is Marti Pellow living underground on the island?

and

2. Don't come here for witty comments on Lost first. I can neither stomach the amount of ads that channel 4 stick into the show (12 minutes worth after 3 minutes of the show?) nor stay up 'til 11.05 in the pm so I have to record it and watch it the next day.

Worth getting married for

Just to hear my 5 year old godson say with a very serious face "I'll need a poo soon I've eaten so much cake".

Which pips the previous 'quote of the wedding' from the day before by the wonderful waitress "these knives are so sharp they will cut BOTH your arms off!!!" Not just a finger mind, or a hand, but BOTH YOUR ARMS.

I do (love pizza)

So, the wedding has been and gone. We enjoyed it a great deal, it was everything we wanted it to be with all our friends and family around us, everything ran smoothly. Well, almost everything and as my very wise best friend said "well, it wouldn't be a proper wedding if there wasn't a problem".

The most worrying aspect of the whole weekend was the discovery that I can no longer eat a whole pizza. Luckily we discovered this after the "I do" bit otherwise Mr L would have had perfectly good grounds to call the whole thing off. Having denied myself pizza since Christmas I was really looking forward to the meal after the wedding. And I was staaaaaaaaarving hungry. So I ordered my favourite pizza, and sensibly had a salad as a starter to leave enough room. It started off well, but with a good 1/4 pizza left I was full. F.U.L.L. To the top. The shame! I put this theory to test again on our honeymoon and guess what? Had to leave 1/4 again! However, you can still talk to me as both times, despite being so full, so very, very full, I managed a dessert.

She's still got it.

Dear blog,

please forgive me, I forgot your first birthday! How careless of me. I am a bad mother. If I wasn't so sick of baking, I'd bake you a cake, but after spending all of last weekend baking wedding cakes I just can't face the greaseproof paper again. Not yet.

Well, what a year it's been ey? We've seen the formation of Indie Boot Camp, put on and lost one stone in weight, laughed at Bookish Barbara, atteptmed to join not one but two GP surgeries, and decided to get married. No, not me and you married blog, that would be crazy!

Anyway, I'll leave you to celebrate your birthday. Just don't drink too much okay?

Lots of Love,

Lady Librarian

P.S. Yes, I am fully aware that this blog is the equivalent of those 'flashback' episodes of Friends that nobody really likes.

Happy Hen Night!

banner
Originally uploaded by Lady Librarian.

I'd like to say that I've only just around to blogging about my hen night as I've only just recovered, but that would be a lie to make me sound more rock and roll than I am. In truth I am lazy.

But look at my banner! It is a work of beauty and I love it. I have it at home, and if we ever live anywhere big enough to put it up, I will! Click on the picture to see an in depth explanation of the banner, just like at a museum.

It was an excellent night, and went a bit like this (I think):

2.30pm Meet friends at Euston Station and nip to M&S for those hen night essentials: tea bags and champagne.

4pm Cups of tea and glasses of champagne all round and a game of 'pin the winky wonky on Dave Grohl'. This is a bit like pin the tail on the donkey, but with more rock stars and penis shaped vegetable photos.

6.30pm Everyone going "argh we have an hour to get ready and there are four ladies per bathroom!"

7.45pm I am bossing everyone into putting the finishing touches to their make up and bundling them out the hotel.

7.50pm I shove four of the ladies into a taxi telling them a bus would never turn up, and we'll get the next available taxi.

7.51pm Me, Miss S and Booky B get on a bus, realising we have sent the four ladies who don't live in London off in the taxi...

8.05pm Hurrah! We arrive at the pub and the taxi ladies are already there and getting the drinks in.

9pm Whilst I am forcing booze down Booky Bs neck like it's going out of fashion, we make friends with a young man called John. Booky B thinks she told him he looked like a male prostitute. What she actually said was "You look like a male prostitute". John replied with "Well, how much would you pay for me" Booky B "Five pounds. And I'd expect four pounds fifty change" How did this woman end up married?

10pm Head off from the pub to the club. I demand we get taxis! Four of us jump into the first taxi and I ask for a fictitious address. We want the Macadam building, I ask for Macadam Street. It's a miracle we get there. As we are pulling off in our taxi, we look out of the back window to see a rikshaw dude pulling up looking like all his birthdays have come at once. At last, a punter, willing to risk life and limb in my rickety rickshaw! And not any old punter but three lovely ladies! The three lovely ladies wave rikshaw man on and get in a proper taxi.

10.30pm Making our way into the club, we cannot manage (between eight of us, two totally sober) to press the right button in the lift. This is shocking. Three of us even worked in this building for quite a while. All the more shocking is there are only three buttons you can press - the way out, the club and for some reason floor 2. This totally flumoxes us, and we (of course) press the wrong one, pile out at floor 2, only to turn on our heels and pile back in. We press all buttons for good measure and eventually get into the club.

10.35pm I make my way to the DJ box. I tell him "hello, it's my hen night" point to my 'Abby's Hen night 2006' badge lovingly made by my sister. I continue; "if you play The Smiths or The Wonderstuff I can guarantee you at least four (hold up four fingers) ladies on that empty dancefloor (point at empty dancefloor)" DJ agrees. I think he may have been a little scared.

10.40pm Carter USM 'Bloodsport For All' comes on! Yesssss! Pretty sure that only me and Booky B knew the track, most of the kids in there probably weren't born when it was out. We dance like we're 19 and manage to take up the whole, empty dancefloor.

2am We continue to dance the night away, Booky B and Miss S attract a lot of male attention, all of them weird. Finally when our legs are about to seize up we head back to the hotel, where asking for extra pillows seems to be a very greedy thing to do, the receptionist telling us "I am very busy" forgetting that we just had to walk through a very empty reception to get to our room...

We're talkin' about money, money

In particular the £30 I am worse off today after a 7 year old promise came back to haunt me.

Anyone who knows me, knows that saying "let's go see (insert name of band here)" is my number one hobby of choice, and when I am drunk it is my super number one hobby. Anyway, just before I left home seven years ago, my mum was talking about Simply Red, and how she'd love to go and see them. Now this was too much bait to refuse, so being the good daughter/obsessed with saying I'll go to gigs person that I am, I said "if they ever play round here, I'll go". Now I'd just like to point out that seven years ago the chances of Simply Red ever playing my home town were remoter than something right over the far side of on a remote island in the Unites States of Remoteshire.

Fast forward seven years, and guess what tickets I just brought? £30 to go and see Mick "lardy" Hucknall and his possee, at an outdoor gig in one of the rainiest towns in the country. Yeah, thanks Stoke City for building a stadium big enough not only for football, but also for gigs. Thanks a big bloody lot.

Bye bye indie street cred, bye bye.

Look at this

Lazy blog I know, but really, look at this. It's rude and funny! Result!

Party Hard

I'm trying to put together some 'tunes' for the party the day after the wedding. For my first selection I was thinking I'd go all 1996, you know, the year we met, and also the year of some damn fine music. The last time I made a CD for a wedding party it almost sent me over the edge. And my friend spent three weeks before his 40th birthday putting together his perfect party mix. So, in order to ease the pain this time round, any suggestions? What makes a good party song?

There are just a few pointers:

• No Coldplay/Travis/Embrace/any group with whingy front man/woman.
• No swearing in the song! My mum and dad will be there!
• If we are to dance to it, please bear in mind that we will be drunk and in ridiculously high heels.
• If we are to dance to it, and there's a routine that goes with it, all the better!
• No sad songs to make the maudlin' drunks cry.
• Songs which mention weddings will get you bonus points. Well, they would if there was a point system going on here. Which there isn't, becuase I'm not Tesco Clubcard.
• Songs that mention librarians get 1,000 extra bonus points. Maybe I should set up a points system.
• Did I mention no Coldplay? I mean it!
• Booky B, I am not playing 5 hours non-stop The Darkness.
• Take your cue from the Last FM link over there.

Any suggestions?

Yoga

So what's that all about, then? A friend at work has lent me her yoga dvd, as I've been meaning to try yoga for ages (I have no idea why, I just feel I should). It was as I suspected, I am in no way co-ordintaed enough to do yoga. By the time I've worked out my lefts and rights, the bloody woman is on to the next move. And how can something so holistic make you swear so much? And the falling over, what's that about?

Why I never wanted to phone the bridal shop in the first place

Bridal shop lady: "Hello, House of Brides"
Lady Librarian: "Hello, if I wanted to come and look at dresses, do I need to make an appointment or can I just come along?"
BSL: "Ooh, no deary. You can just come along if you want to, the only time you need to make an appointment is on a late night or a Saturday"
LL: "And if I wanted to try them on?"
BSL: "That's fine my love, we'll help you with all that, don't you worry"
LL: "Right, okay, well I should be coming along in a couple of hours, is that okay?"
BSL: "Fine, fine. When's the wedding dear?"
LL: "29th April"
BSL: "29th April next year?"
LL: "This year."
BSL: "THIS YEAR????? THE 29TH APRIL THIS YEAR???!! Why, you've left it far, far too late. This year?"
LL: "But it says you have a 6 week rapid service, and the wedding isn't for another 8 weeks"
BSL: "Oh no, I'm not doing that. I couldn't guarantee it"
LL: (thinks well why do you offer it then?) "Oh okay, bye"
BSL: "Bye" (puts phone down) "Jean, Jean! Bloody Nora, Jean! She's getting married on the 29th April THIS YEAR and she's only just asking about dresses! THIS YEAR! I need a drink. No, not tea, Jean, Didn't you hear me? I said 29th April THIS YEAR. Pass the whisky. This year!! THIS!!!! YEAR!!!!"

Mork calling Orson

If Mork was calling this Orson, I really hope he'd be calling them to tell them to feck right off, and take their fecking stupid "song" with them. I hate No Tomorrow so much, whenever it comes on the radio I have to fight the urge not to repeatedly punch the next person I see. To say I hate this song would be the understatement of the year. The first time I heard it, I thought "this is pretty cool, I could dance to this, listen to the hi-hat in the chorus, it's all tss tss tss". Then I made the mistake of listening to the lyrics. It's like Orson swallowed the unabridged version of The Brian Molko Rhyming Dictionary* and puked them up. In time to the music. Booky B tried to convince me "they are like Shakespeare". I think she was joking.

The lyrics that makes me feel the most violent, are the rhyming of "shiny pants" with "romance"(what!?) and "red bull" with "school". Now the more literate amongst you might notice that "red bull" and "school" don't actually rhyme. And this, pop fans, is what makes me want to scream. Because Mr Orson sings "red bool" and those lyrics, are the lyrics I hate the most , ever!

* Oh, how I wish this actually existed.

Wimp!

Checking my RSS reader, I noticed this question on a medical Q & A feed:

Q. A 24yr old man doing survival course in Philippine jungle april this year, for 10 days what vaccinations should he have?

Vaccinations on a survival course? Surely that's cheating?

Beware! This one's about the W!

Mr L is best manning for his friend who is getting married on September 30th. Yesterday we got a beautiful, handmade invitation from them.

Us? Our invites were £3.50 for ten from Marks and Sparks, and whilst we may have written them, oh okay, written some of them, we haven't sent them yet. We don't even have stamps! And we get married in 2 months.

Oops.

Lovely hair

Ohmygod!! How fabulous is my new haircut? And the fringe! Marvellous! Look at the layers, ooh and I like the parting on a different side. Lovely, lovely hair!

You can't have your cake and eat it

Cake #3 The winner!

Or can you? Two weekends ago we trekked up to my mum and dads for a visit and The Great Chocolate Wedding Cake Tasting Competition (TGCWTC).

Now, at the W there will be three cakes. A traditional fruit cake which I am making (I'm using the family Christmas cake recipe, but with less Santa decoration), a vegan, alcohol free fruit cake which Mr L is making for the guests that don't drink, and the chocolate cake, which my mum is making, requested by Mr L but coveted by our godson. I can see it now, Mr L with one side of the cake, a 5 year old with the other, the cake flying through the air...

Anyway, at TGCWTC we tried four cakes. My poor mum was so enthusiastic at the beginning, we left her on the Saturday cheery and looking forward to trying out four different recipes. My sister came home at 10pm the same day to find her at her wits end wrestling with fondant icing. She made the cakes, cut them in half, iced half of each cake (there were two different types of icing) and numbered the cakes. Then we all (12 of us) had a piece of each cake.

Life's too short to explain everything that happened at the TGCWTC so here are the highlights;

• Godson put in charge of giving cakes marks on chart we drew together.
• We were allowed to eat the cake before our dinner - when does that ever happen? In fact my mum was encouraging it!
• Cake #4 (which we tried first, don't ask) enjoyed by all, especially godson who wolfed it all down without dropping a bit.
• Cake #2 full of booze and chocolate, yummy but the general consensus was that it was "a bit too rich".
• Cake #3 Mmm, coffee and chocolate and delicious.
• Cake #1 Mmmmm, also delicious! This is so difficult!
• Every cake preceded by Mr S asking "is this cake #1?".
• Me worrying about godson dropping brown cake onto mums new beige carpet. Guess who made more mess (clue: initials are LL)?
• Mrs S phoning up when she got home to say "don't tell your mum, but I've been sick".
• Mr L having to have the next day off work with tummy ache.
• D asking for seconds! Seconds!

You should be able to see (but not taste, boo!) the other cakes by clicking on the cake above...You'll also find the epitime of the Wedding Cake; Scott & Charlene's cake. Altogether now "Suddenly you're here with meeee".

I want my MP3

I don't smoke, I don't drink that much. My vice? My MP3 player. I can't go anywhere without it, since it arrived in the post at work 10 months ago we have been inseperable. Until now.

On Saturday night we were staying with my bestest friend, Mrs S, and I was showing off my lovely little MP3 player. My beautiful purple Zen Micro. Sob. Mrs S was saying how she wanted an MP3 player, but then admitted she didn't know what they did, or why she wanted one. I blame the continous repeating of the Balamory christmas dvd that her 2 year old insists on watching "Mummy, Mory! Moreeeeeeeeeeeey", it's obviously sent her insane.

Anyway, when we went up to bed 1.5 litres of Sangria later, I was too sleepy to actually put my player back in my bag. It wasn't until we were at my parents and leaving for the station the next day until I realised I'd left it on their bedside table! Noooooooooooooo! Double Nooooooooo!!!

I won't get it back until my mum comes to visit in THREE WEEKS!! So for now, I'm listening to my radio, my post Walkman (RIP) pre-MP3 musical accompanyment. And instead of my usual expensive fabulous, outside noise blocking headphones? I have a pair of headphones my dad stole from the open-top tour bus of London.

Sob.